The law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, or social status, but the government did not enforce these prohibitions effectively. Government officials used discriminatory language toward opposition groups such as protesters, women, Alevis, Kurds, and other minorities. The constitution allows measures to advance gender equality as... Expand

The law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, or social status, but the government did not enforce these prohibitions effectively. Government officials used discriminatory language toward opposition groups such as protesters, women, Alevis, Kurds, and other minorities. The constitution allows measures to advance gender equality as well as measures to benefit children, seniors, persons with disabilities, widows, and veterans, without violating the constitutional prohibition against discrimination.

On March 3, the parliament approved a law known as the Democratization Package that introduced an article on hate speech or injurious acts related to language, race, nationality, color, gender, disability, political opinion, philosophical belief, religion, or sectarian differences. Perpetrators of these acts may be punished by up to three years in prison. While observers considered the legislation a positive step, they noted its categories did not match OSCE’s recommendations because ethnic identity, sexual orientation, sexual identity, age, and profession were not included. Consequently civil society organizations asserted the grounds for punishing discrimination and hate in the law remained too limited and excluded major offences that may be motivated by discrimination and/or hate, especially failing to protect the most vulnerable groups, including women, persons with disabilities, LGBT individuals, Roma, and religious minorities.

While the law does not explicitly discriminate against LGBT individuals, references in the law relating to “offenses against public morality,” “protection of the family,” and “unnatural sexual behavior” sometimes served as a basis for discrimination by employers and abuse by police. LGBT prostitutes reported that police detained them to extract payoffs. The law provides that “no association may be founded for purposes against law and morality.” Authorities applied this law in attempts to shut down or limit the activities of NGOs working on LGBT matters, and the TIB blocked LGBT social websites. For example, the website Grindr, blocked in August 2013, remained blocked during the year.

LGBT individuals continued to suffer discrimination, intimidation, and violent crimes. The NGO KAOS-GL reported that between 2010 and June 2014, there were at least 41 reported hate murders of individuals known to self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

KAOS-GL also reported that social protection was withheld from LGBT individuals due to the failure of the Ministry of Family and Social Policies and the Ministry of Labor to acknowledge the existence of LGBT individuals. KAOS-GL reported that neither ministry would engage with LGBT groups or consider the rights of LGBT persons or their need for services and protection.

LGBT advocates accused the courts and prosecutors of creating an environment of impunity for attacks on transgender persons in prostitution. Human rights attorneys reported that police and prosecutors frequently failed to pursue violence against transgender persons aggressively. They often did not arrest suspects or hold them in pretrial detention, as was common with other defendants. When arrests were made, defendants could claim “unjustifiable provocation” under the penal code and request a reduced sentence. That code states that punishment “will be reduced if the perpetrator commits a crime under the influence of rage or strong, sudden passion caused by a wrongful act.” Judges routinely applied the law to reduce the sentences of those who killed LGBT individuals. For example, on February 26, a court reduced the sentence of a man who killed a transgender woman from life imprisonment to 18 years under the “unjust provocation” provision. According to the verdict, the “unjust act” was the victim’s “being a transvestite.” Courts of appeal upheld these verdicts based, in part, on the “immoral nature” of the victim.

On April 21, two transgender women were assaulted in the district of Tarlabasi in Istanbul. One woman, Nalan, was injured and her companion, 21-year-old Cagla, died. Another transgender woman recounted the attack and reported that police and ambulance staff refused to touch the dead body, so the victim’s friends were forced to carry her.

There were active LGBT organizations in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Eskisehir, and Diyarbakir, and unofficial groups in smaller cities and on university campuses. Groups reported harassment by police and government authorities. Many university groups in small cities complained that rectors had denied them permission to organize. On June 18, the administration of Mardin Artuklu University canceled a “queer and architecture” workshop for a graduate class due to threats that included hate speech.

LGBT organizations reported the government used regular and detailed auditing to create administrative burdens and threaten the possibility of large fines. They also reported challenges finding office space to rent due to discrimination from landlords.

LGBT individuals faced discrimination in employment. The law includes a clause that allows for dismissal if a government employee is found “to act in a shameful and embarrassing way unfit for the position of a civil servant,” and other statutes criminalize the vague practice of unchastity. In March an LGBT police officer in Gaziantep was fired and charged with the crime of “unchastity.” The administrative court rejected the officer’s appeal to annul the decision.

News

Turkey has ruled out a return to the Eurovision Song Contest until the show bans LGBT+ contestants. The country was a staple at the pan-European music contest from 1975 up until 2012, when it abruptly withdrew citing disagreements with the rules. In 2013, Finland’s entry Krista Siegfrids kissed a female backing dancer on stage as an equal marriage protest during her track Marry Me,which allegedly promted Turkey to scrap all broadcasts of the competition entirely. Turkey has ruled out a return ever since, and this week TV bosses again confirmed the country would not be participating in 2019. Ibrahim Eren, who runs Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), cited the show’s 2014 winner Conchita Wurst – an Austrian drag artist – as inappropriate to be broadcast on TV.

Turkey has the highest transgender murder rate in Europe. The violence transgender people face often goes unpunished as the police is reluctant to investigate these cases and to help them. The transgender community is worried for its safety as recentlyre-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdoganand his socially-conservative party, the AKP, have expressed anti-LGBT views and refuse to put LGBT rights on the agenda. “I wanted and tried to kill myself so many times but didn’t die, so I thought there is life in me and I chose the name Hayat (‘life’ in Turkish). I was born again,’” says Hayat Celik.

Homophobic leaflets blaming the “British deep state” for “forcing” people into homosexuality have reportedly been distributed in Turkey. The anti-gay notices which allegedly say “homosexuality is despicableness and can be turned away by convincement” were given to people sitting in the town of Alsancak, Izmir, according to Turkish news site Bianet. Other leaflets were also reportedly spread in different cities in the same time period. Posters which allegedly read “homosexuality is perversion”, were dropped in mail boxes and across the city of Ankara on the same day (Friday July 20), the news site reported. According to Pembe Hayat (Pink Life in English), a Turkish LGBT group, the leaflets alleged that homosexuals are supported by “British deep state” and that homosexuals are “sexual perverts.”

As dusk approached on Sunday, the streets filled with smiling faces that sparkled with glitter, along with ululating pop music and drums. All around, rainbow flags fluttered in the sky as the crowd gathered. “Don’t be quiet, don’t shut up, shout, homosexuals exist,” they shouted On both sides of the peaceful, joyful crowd stood lines of police in riot gear, waiting with their shields add batons, the tension building. An estimated 1,000 protesters advocating gay rights clashed with Turkish security forces in Istanbul in an attemptto defy a ban on the annual LGBT Pride Parade. At least 11 people were reported arrested, according to lawyers and activists, as police fired teargas along the city’s most famous commercial street.

TheAnkaraGovernor’s Office has banned the movie screening event of a communistLGBTgroup which was to be held in the capital city on June 28, citing the ongoing state of emergency in the country as a reason for the ban. The office said such events can “incite hatred and enmity” among different fractions of the society, from which “danger” can arise. The ban came after theAnkaraCommunistLGBTs community announced they would screen the 2014 BritishLGBT-related historical comedy-drama film “Pride” at the Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center in the city’s Çankaya district at 7:30 p.m. on June 28. “It has been evaluated that the events could incite hatred and enmity among different groups of people based on class, racial, religious and sectarian differences,” the office said.

Teens draped in rainbow flags, trans activists waving banners, same-sex couples holding hands: every year, usually in the closing days of June, these are the scenes taking place in Istanbul, Turkey. But, for the last three years, these scenes have been interrupted by violence; by police brutality in the form of rubber bullets, tear gas and riot shields rammed ruthlessly against tearful, sometimes bloodied victims just trying to celebrate their identities. This year, these brutal attacks look set to repeat themselves as, once again, LGBT+ activists are gearing up to defy the demands of an authoritarian government and take to the streets.

Though they fear what Sunday's elections may bring, LGBT activists intend to unite and march in this year’s Pride Parade. Turkey’s LGBT community has vowed not to surrender in its battle against homophobia, despite fears the outcome of this week’s election could lead to a further government crackdown. Amid rising hostility and mounting discrimination, members of the LGBT community feelPresident Recep Tayyip Erdoganis waging a war against them. Nonetheless, they are preparing to launch a counteroffensive in the form of rainbow flags and a show of unity throughout Pride week, which begins a day after Sunday's vote.

Whenyou are a refugee, you learn all about the hierarchy of compassion. There are the people from war-torn countries—refugees from humanitarian catastrophes so enormous that they upend the world’s imagination, such as those who have escaped from Syria. There are people who have fled a sudden campaign of violence and hatred, such as the gay men who have beenescaping from Chechnyafor the past year. And then there is you: unlucky enough to have suffered the kind of misfortune that can’t seem to hold onto a headline. From the officers of U.N.H.C.R.—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency that runs refugee-resettlement operations around the world—what you hear is this: “There is no country for you.” Ali (he asked not to use his full name) is a gay man from Iran who reached out to me on behalf of L.G.B.T. refugees in Turkey. We have corresponded and talked on Skype during the last few days. When we spoke, he tried to make clear that he doesn’t begrudge the world’s focus on the refugees from Syria. Nor does he begrudge the activism that has helped more than a hundred queer Chechensflee their countryfor the safety of Canada, France, Germany, and other destinations. Ali wants everyone to make it to safety. But he and other L.G.B.T. refugees currently living in Turkey feel like they have been forgotten.

Earlier this week, clothing chain Primark announced that it would be working with LGBTQ charity Stonewall to sell Pride-themed clothing. The company announced this union while also saying that they will be selling and distributing the merchandise all over Europe and the US. In addition, Primark announced that 20 percent of the proceeds will go towards Stonewall. That said, problems arose when Primark shared that the merchandise is being created in strict anti-gay countries. A spokesperson unleashed a can of worms on the company after revealing that the merch is “manufactured in China, Turkey and Myanmar… in accordance with internationally recognized standards.” The problem is that all three of these countries have anti-gay governments.

"Most LGBT+ peoplein Turkey todayare living in more fear than ever before,” an activist tells me when we meet in a café in Istanbul on a cloudy day in February. She is too afraid for me to share her name. “With the crackdown on freedom of expression, spaces for LGBT+ people to be themselves are shrinking. They see no hope, no future. Many of us have either moved to other countries or are thinking of leaving.”

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